Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got an email from the gal from Animals In Entertainment. She heard back from Cabelas. Here is a copy of her email to me:

"Possible good news, but I need your advice fast. I got a message from Cabelas today and he said they are considering releasing the turtles to the outside within a week, or "some of our employees have expressed interest in taking them home." Of course, releasing them is a dream come true IF and only IF it is feasible! I don't know enough to say! Help!

(Plus, his message got cut off at the end, but I'll try tracking him down tomorrow)"

I quickly emailed her and told her this is NOT a good thing. It's already too cold here in Pennsylvania. I'm sure these RES were bred in captivity. They would not survive. I asked her to contact the store on Monday. I won't let these two be dumped outside. Geez. How hard would it have been to buy a $10 basking light?!!

You need to emphasize the fact that releasing them is ILLEGAL. They have sent written correpsondance showing intent to release them. Legally, they would have to prove who took them or face charges.

You could also send a copy of the letter to your local wildlife resource agency, park rangers, or somebody like that. They would most likely take the initiative to contact the store ahead of time to stop them from doing this. He/she might also tell them how easily they could make it a nice habitat for the turtles, and still have them for customers to enjoy.

YIKES!! Honeybee is there anyway you could have them give you these turtles? From there we can get them into the hands of someone who could deal with keeping or placing them (if you decided you did not want to take them on of course).

This is not a good idea (releasing them). If they are healthy enough AND their gut is completely empty they might survive if released but it is not legal to do so as they are non native specie and also a big risk to their lives and potential health risk to native species.

See if you can get them and if you need help placing them please let me know -- we can try and figure something out. At least if you get them they will be with someone who cares and that's the best chance that they have.

Steve

Hey,

I was just at Cabela's in PA on sunday and there wasn't ANY sign of any turtles there. I looked very hard and there was nothing there... Are you sure they had turtles there? I talked to the manager and he said they never even had any at that store.

OHMYGOD!! If you knew what I had been through with this store in the past few weeks....
Yes they DID have turtles there up until Monday. AND they were wild caught! Supposedly, someone 'took them home' after we raised hell and got PETA involved. If you don't believe me, I welcome you to contact Jen O'Conner from PETA. Her email address is jeno@peta.org WHO did you speak to? John Kastio is the manager of the store. There was one turtle in the moose pond in the center of the store, and one in the aquarium with the fish.